With
one move, two grocery store chains may have spared thousands of pigs from a good
deal of suffering. Foodland Super Market and
Times Supermarkets on Oahu have announced that they will no longer sell meat from pigs
who were shipped live to Hawaii from the
mainland. In addition to the pain of having their throats cut and being scalded during slaughter, pigs
who are transported across the ocean alive spend days aboard ships in cramped,
filthy conditions and stifling temperatures, often becoming sick and dying
during the arduous voyage.

The grocers’ decision could spell the end for Oahu’s only slaughterhouse certified
by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and could end all
live transport to Oahu. Slaughtering pigs shipped from the mainland is the bulk
of business for Hawaii Livestock Cooperative’s slaughterhouse. The facility has
been struggling financially for a decade and surviving only with help from the
government. The president of the slaughterhouse cooperative, Calvin Wong, said
he isn’t sure that it can sustain the latest loss of business, calling it “another nail
in the coffin.”